My cousin Denise told me about Ray’s the way people tell you about a doctor they trust — quietly, like she didn’t want too many other people to know. “Go on a weekday,” she said. “Get there before noon. Ray’s usually out back.”
Ray’s Drive-In sits on the south side of Jonesboro, out on South Caraway Road, past the auto parts stores and the tire shop. It’s a small, flat-roofed building with a parking lot that fills up faster than it should for something that size. If you’re looking for a sign out front that tells you much about what’s inside, you won’t find one. The building does the work just by being there.
Ray Holloway, who started the place in the early 1980s, is usually somewhere nearby on weekday mornings — checking the smoker, talking to a regular at the counter, or just standing in the parking lot with a cup of coffee. He’s in his late sixties now, a little quieter than the legend around him suggests, and he doesn’t seem particularly interested in explaining what makes his food good. He just makes it good.
The menu is short by design. Burgers, hot dogs, a few sandwiches. The real draw is the smoked beef — thin-sliced, pulled with two forks, piled onto plain white bread with a smear of Ray’s house sauce. The sauce is vinegary and a little sweet, and it has something in it I’ve never been able to place. I’ve asked twice. Ray smiled both times and said nothing useful.
A beef sandwich and a drink will run you somewhere around eight or nine dollars, which is more than it used to cost and still less than it’s worth. The onion rings come in a red basket lined with wax paper and they’re thick-cut, not the frozen kind. Order them. The fries are fine, but the onion rings are the right choice.
Inside, there are maybe eight tables. The walls have photos — Ray at different ages, local high school teams, a few newspaper clippings in plastic frames. It smells like a place that has been cooking the same things in the same way for a very long time, which is one of the better smells there is. A woman named Cheryl works the counter most mornings. She knows everyone’s order and she has a memory for faces that borders on unsettling in the best possible way.
What I keep coming back to, really, is the steadiness of it. Jonesboro has changed a lot in forty years — new developments, new chains, new everything. Ray’s has not chased any of it. The hours are the hours, the menu is the menu, and Ray is usually out back. There’s something almost stubborn about it, and I mean that as a compliment of the highest order.
Go on a Tuesday. Get there by 11:30 before the lunch crowd takes the last table by the window. Order the smoked beef sandwich and the onion rings. Say hi to Cheryl. If Ray’s standing in the lot on your way out, tell him the sauce is good. He’ll smile and say nothing useful, but he’ll mean it.
